Front and Center (24 page)

"
What?
" Which was extremely rude of me, but I think you know by now how I feel about the entire news business industry.

"Or not!" the coach laughed. "It's totally up to you. The point is,
we
can't tell anyone, not until you sign a letter of intent next November. Then we'll put together a press release, hold a news conference..."

"Oh, great." Which was sarcastic, you know, the way I said it. But it also wasn't.

So we chatted a bit more about the other eight billion NCAA rules I needed to know, how I could change my mind but she sure hoped I wouldn't (which she didn't say out loud because I guess that's against one of the rules, but it came through in her voice loud and clear). Then I got off the phone and went out to the lobby, where Mom and Dad and Win and Coach K and a bunch of other families were waiting, and when Mom asked what took me so long, I said I'd just called Minnesota to verbal.

All the stress of that phone call—of the whole last two months—all that stress was totally paid back, just by the look on Win's face.

"You called? Just now?" he asked, almost jumping out of his wheelchair, he was so upset. "Without ... without..."

"Without you," Mom finished, patting him on the arm. "D.J., that's wonderful."

"Congratulations, sport," Dad said, catching me up in a huge bear hug. And Coach K hugged me, and the parents and girls, and Win even managed after a couple minutes to stop choking himself and grunt that the U of M might be okay even though I hadn't looked at many other schools, and I could have waited a
little
bit more. Which was especially rich coming from him, but at least the guy was trying.

I called Brian Saturday morning to tell
him,
and he said he'd always known I'd pick Minnesota but he couldn't help but hope. And he said he'd definitely be there every time I played Madison, and that maybe tonight we should, you know, go out together. To celebrate.

Only when he went to tell his mom, let her know he was going out and everything—I love this so much because it's such a relief when other kids' folks are mortifying—she really put the screws in him. Because apparently Mrs. Nelson and my mom had run into each other at the Super Saver and while they were chatting and Mom was thanking her for the Christmas decorations and everything, she let slip about our big trip to Mall of America and how beautiful (her word) I looked in my dress. And so when Brian told Mrs. Nelson the two of us were going out, she said in that way moms have that is more ordering than suggesting that it would be awfully nice if he treated it like a real date and we both got dressed up.

And you know what? Brian actually went for it. He actually seemed kind of into it. I couldn't tell if it was his Oprah Winfrey mom or just because he's such a good guy. I didn't mind either, to tell you the truth. I guess I like that dress more than I thought, getting to wear my b-ball earrings and all. Brian looked pretty nice too, with this sweater, and shoes that were shiny black and very much the opposite of tennies, although he said they're surprisingly comfortable, which I have to believe because why would anyone lie about a thing like that.

Dad even got a little teary seeing us, which was weird, and he made this big deal of trying to find the camera so Mom could have a picture because she'd left that afternoon with Win, heading back to Minnesota. But of course he couldn't, so he ended up taking a picture with Brian's cell phone and Brian promised to e-mail it to her.

We went out for pizza—real exciting, I know, but what can you do. It was either that or the Alpenhaus. It was mostly families eating seeing as it was still pretty early, the little kids bouncing around the way they do in restaurants. I told Brian Amber's meatballi story, and he agreed that meatballi was such a better term than meatballs and that he was never again going to call them anything else.

And then Amber and Dale walked in.

Dale caught sight of us and came right over, which of course she would, pulling off her hat and her big coat like she was settling in forever.

Well, I just about died. Amber's never been a big fan of Brian, for one thing. Plus I'd never really explained to Brian about her and Dale. I mean, he's got a gay cousin in Chicago and all, but it's different when you're in high school in middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin.

But. But Brian was my friend, and Amber and Dale were my friends, and I needed to stop being such a baby. If I could play D-I ball, I could at least for once act like a freaking grownup. "Um, hey," I managed. "You ... want to join us?"

Dale immediately plopped down next to Brian, introducing herself and saying they could stay for a few minutes, while Amber squeezed in beside me. She took a long look at my dress.

"It's silly, I know..." I said. Trying, you know, to cut her off.

"No, it's not. It looks real pretty on you. Makes you look all straight."

"Oh. Um, thanks." Because I think this was a compliment. Plus she said it was a really good color, which is actually something she's great at, colors and stuff, even if the combinations aren't the sort of things Mom would choose.

So Amber and I chatted away while Dale told Brian all the best restaurants in Milwaukee, and he acted like this was the best information he'd ever heard in his life. Then the pizza guy shouted something and Dale hopped up because they were just there for takeout, because Dale had a friend visiting who's a vegetarian so they were picking up a couple veggie pizzas. Which sounded like a total waste of money to me, but Brian asked to see them and said they smelled so good that he was going to order one too.

Looking at Dale, I couldn't help thinking that she could get along with anyone. All those tough barbecue guys, Brian, my dad ... No matter who it is or how much you'd think that person wouldn't be so into a
lesbian,
she makes it fine. And it occurred to me that the reason she makes it work, probably, is because she's so comfortable with herself. And you know, that's not such a bad notion, in the whole life-lesson business. Being comfortable with yourself. Because if you're not okay with who you are, why should anyone else be?

Later on, after Dale and Amber left and our food came—that's one thing I can say about being non-size-zero; it sure makes it fun to eat—the door banged open and a bunch of Hawley guys came pounding in.

Seeing them, it was like every stomach butterfly I've ever had in my life showed up all at once. Only the butterflies were the size of vultures.

From the look on Brian's face, he was getting major butterflies too. He glanced at me and you could just see him trying not to be nervous.

"I've got two words for you," I said. (Okay, I admit this was really mean of me. But I couldn't help it.) "Club football."

"Ha ha." He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. "Yo, dudes. Over here."

The guys looked our way, and I could see them doing a double take, eyeing each other kind of sideways as they piled into the booths near ours, saying hey to Brian and punching his shoulder.

One of them held his hand out to me. "Hey. I'm Carl Dietz. Tyler's cousin? Congratulations, man." He turned to the guys around him. "She just got offered a free ride to Minnesota. As a junior."

"Yeah," said one of the other guys in this real snotty voice. "For
girls'
basketball."

Well, you should have seen the reaction to
that.
All the guys went "Oooooo" the way you do when someone's just been dissed, and started grinning like crazy at each other, and Brian said to the guy, really coolly, "You want to take her on? One on one?"

"Wait—hey—that's not what I meant—"

"How about you, D.J.?" Brian turned to me. "You up for it?"

I shrugged. "I wouldn't want to bruise my hands." Which was a line I learned from Aaron, just so you know, but I don't think he'd mind my using it.

Well, this cracked everyone up, and a couple guys slapped palms with me and really started putting it to that anti-girls'-b-ball guy, who kept trying to explain what he'd meant but of course there's no way he could have meant anything other than what he said. Then someone else asked how my brother was doing.

"He's doing okay," I said. Because he was. Now that I'd verbaled, he was going to have to find a new bone to chew on. Knowing Win, though, that wasn't going be too hard.

"You should hear my dad," the guy said. "Whenever we complain the least little bit, he's all like, 'You think Win Schwenk is whining right now? Get off your butts and go shovel!'"

"Tell me about it," another guy said.

They all laughed, nodding at this ... and you know what? All of a sudden I realized my stomach butterflies had flown away. Every last one.

So. Meeting Brian's gang ... that was pretty trippy. Finding out that those guys are normal, more or less. As normal as the rest of us, anyway. That was okay.

And there's one more guy I should probably mention. Remember when Kathy Ott drove me to Minneapolis to visit the U of M, way back when? And the whole way there she was chatting away? Well, one of the things she told me was how much Win appreciated everything I'd done for him. Apparently he'd called one night and had a long talk with Jimmy Ott about it. He even said—according to Kathy, who's not the kind of person to make stuff like this up—Win said I'd saved his life.

Which you have to admit is a pretty strange way to hear that, you know, through your ex-boyfriend's high school football coach's wife.

At the time I was pretty angry about the whole thing. That my own brother couldn't even say "You saved my life" to my face. Because I've thought it myself more than once, you know, those exact words, and to hear them from Win would have been ... it would have a been a boost. It would have meant the world to me. And the fact he couldn't say them aloud, even to his
lifesaver
... well, that didn't make me so happy. It made me even more ticked off at him than I usually am.

But I've thought a lot since then, about what Kathy said and what Win didn't. Of course, for one thing there's the whole truth that Schwenks can't talk. I mean, look how bad we are even with little issues; no wonder he couldn't bring up something as big as that, bring it up to my face and all. Finally, after I'd thought about this and chewed on it for weeks and weeks, in between all those other big subjects I was chewing on, it occurred to me that maybe his riding me these past months, hassling me about scholarships and videotapes, his insistence that I play D-I, the way he called all those coaches himself with his special SCI phone and typed his way to all those websites ... maybe that was his way of demonstrating gratitude.

Well, if that was his screwed-up Schwenk way of showing gratitude, I was just as Schwenk-awful at receiving it. Sheesh. But no matter how angry I've been these past months, and resentful, and phone-slamming, I-won't-talk-to-him mad, that doesn't mean I don't know what he did.

Win, you say I saved your life. Well, you didn't save mine: you got me one. You've found me a better life than I ever imagined I deserved. And no matter how much I refused to listen, and kept shouting out that you were wrong, you kept insisting I was worth it. Until I had no alternative left but to hear you out.

I'll never forget that. Never. And just so you know, I will think of you ... well, I'll think of you a lot. Every Big Ten game I play, every time I sit there waiting to run out in front of ten thousand people and play the very best I can, to be the very best player that D.J. Schwenk could ever be, I will think of you, Win, and this is what I will whisper to myself:

Thank you.

Tight end Bennie Cunningham played for Clemson University and then the Pittsburgh Steelers, competing in two Super Bowls. He now works in the Guidance Department of West-Oak High School in South Carolina, and has graciously offered the use of his name to a Schwenk Farm cow.

Aaron's cheesehead hat was inspired by a gift from the charming students and staff of Cherokee Heights Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin. I apologize to them and to the hundreds of readers from all over the world who have asked (often quite forcefully) when I was going to get around to finishing this book. I know it's taken far too long, and I hope it meets your expectations.

Becky Bohm, Barb Smith, Ted Riverso and the incomparable Patsy Kahmann of the University of Minnesota patiently answered my many basketball questions, and then patiently answered them again. Sylvia Hatchell's
Complete Guide to Coaching Girls' Basketball
taught me pretty much everything D.J. now knows about the game.

Though Stewart Irving and I were both raised in Connecticut, he had the great good luck to end up at Berkeley, where in 1990 he introduced me to They Might Be Giants and
Flood.
"Dead" remains a lifelong favorite, and Stewart a good friend. Every couple of years we call each other and marvel at the fact we've somehow turned into grownups.

Liz, Mom, Dad, Nick, Nick, Mimi, Mari: thanks for reading, for listening, for critiquing, for laughing. Jill Grinberg took the tangle of the first FAC draft and shaped it into a narrative thread; Margaret Raymo coaxed me into weaving this thread into something worth reading. I cannot image a more supportive and perceptive agent or editor.

My Wisconsin cousin Forrest Olson was a high school and college basketball star. I remember in particular an August reunion when I offered to jog with him around the lake, and his father whispered later that I'd almost killed him: apparently distance running hadn't been part of his off-season training regimen. This experience and several others, I now realize, formed the nucleus of
Dairy Queen.
After a heroic battle with cancer, Forrest passed away in 2007. Yet even in their grief, his widow and parents have found time to explain team sports, clarify Vikings-Packers enmity, and identify innumerable errors, large and small, in my drafts.
Front and Center
is a story about courage and perseverance; Darla, Carol, and Rod embody these virtues.

And finally, I thank James. You are, in the very best possible sense, my Brian.

We all know Beaner from
Dairy Queen
and
The Off Season,
but in
Front and Center
we get to know him an awful lot better, including this CD-length compilation I created for him while writing. Some of these songs are mentioned in
Front and Center.
"Helpless" is not, but every time I listen to it, I think of D.J. Similarly, several others, such as "Get the Party Started," just remind me of Beaner. I can't help but visualize him bopping around whenever the music starts.